Filaret [Drozdov], Metropolitan of Moscow, as a servant of the word

40 years ago, on November 19, with the speed of lightning, although there were no telegraphs or telephones then, the news flew around Moscow, and then throughout Russia: “Filaret has died.” Whoever took the trouble to re-read the newspapers for these days of 1867 would have learned that these two words produced no less a movement than the fatal news of the declaration of Japanese war or the fall of Port Arthur had recently produced... For example. what I. S. Aksakov wrote in the Moscow newspaper: “Metropolitan Philaret passed away... The power, the great, moral, social power, in which the entire Russian world heard and felt its own power, was abolished - a power that was not created from the outside, generated by the power of the personal spirit, which grew on church folk soil. The mass of glory with which the church adorned itself and the people were consoled collapsed. That great, long modernity, which embraced the space of half a century, has passed through a long series of events and generations and, as it were, has already been transformed into an inalienable historical heritage of Moscow, into its living element, which, it seemed, would never be extinguished forever. brighter as the darkness of life approaches. The never-sleeping eye of thought closed. Half a century of edification to all Russian people was interrupted - in this example, a spirit that was tirelessly awake and awake to the end. The artistic, important word fell silent, which had been heard in Russia for half a century and more than half a century, now penetrating deeply into the secrets of the knowledge of God, now dressing the mind of Divine truths with strict and powerful beauty” 2. For 40 years, the magnitude of Filaret’s fame not only did not fall, but seemed to still increase. The publication of everything that he wrote and everything that was written about him is still ongoing. And in the immeasurable majority, all this only increased the magnitude of glory. But it is all the more unexpected that in this anniversary year, a very reputable press organ published the notes of our famous historian S. M. Solovyov, in which several pages are devoted to the characteristics of Metropolitan. Philareta. Of course, you are well aware of the published document. His impression is such that it seems to force him to agree with the words of I. S. Aksakov that an enormous amount of glory has collapsed. Briefly summing up the character of M. Philaret according to this document, we will be forced to utter the following difficult words: M. Filaret was an extremely spoiled man, belonging to the Masonic party, a flatterer, a despot, an obscurantist, a saint in the eyes of Moscow ladies, a predatory animal, under whose yoke the teachers of the academy and seminary suffered unheard of torture.... I admit, I was confused by the thought of whether it was convenient, even decent, to pronounce these words in this highest Christian educational institution, which was run by M. Filaret for half a century, which he was involved in more than any of the Orthodox hierarchs, who also made his materially valuable contribution to it for eternal prayerful remembrance. Is it proper to pronounce these words on the current day of his memory, when according to pagan (and not just Christian) morals it is commanded either not to say anything, or to say only good things - to crown with an anniversary wreath? But this embarrassment drove away in my mind the memory of a purely Christian celebration and reverence for the followers of Christ who passed into eternity, who ended their following of Christ in the throes of suffering, and by the judgment of the world, branded forever with the name of villains, enemies of the human race. A frequent picture of a Christian tomb, decorated not with fragrant beautiful wreaths, but with shameful material instruments of worldly execution, appears in my mind; these are crowns of thorns. Slander and slander are crowns of thorns. And I know that those who took upon themselves the labor of collecting such crowns of thorns did not deserve censure, but, on the contrary, gained gratitude for collecting and storing the thorns that accompanied the way of the cross of the deceased. And it is not difficult to understand the meaning of this: slander is terrible for a little person; but where there is a feat, it is nothing. Even slander is often a companion to holiness. The first Crusader did not protect himself from it either... And so I think that following these examples on this day, I will not deserve your censure if I present to your attention the thorns for the crown of the ever-remembered hierarch, which our famous historian collected, and add to them several others, even tougher and more prickly, with which the sacred head of the deceased was tormented during his lifetime. At the same time, I will try to give an account of the documents where I found these thorns and when they stung his way of the cross. Here is my offering to crown M. Philaret: he was a heretic, a revolutionary, a Carbonari, an active seditious man. At the same time, I consider it my duty to make a reservation that I must give all the credit for this find to the late prof. I. I. Korsunsky, who with selfless love collected a wide variety of crowns and monuments to the life and work of M. Philaret. Of the many-sided activities of M. Philaret, the main, dominant and most characteristic of his more than half a century of episcopal service is that which in the language of Holy Scripture is called “service to the word,” or preaching the Gospel. This highest duty of Apostolic ministry was always in the foreground before him; To him M. Filaret gave all the strength of his spirit, all his outstanding natural talents. His fulfillment brought him great glory, and it also adorned him with a crown of thorns. According to the conditions of the time, M. Philaret sought to fulfill this duty of serving the word by the following means and ways: a) preaching from the episcopal pulpit, b) translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek texts into the Russian vernacular language; c) compiling catechisms (small and long); and d) disseminating the word of God in various languages ​​as an active member of the Bible Society. It is on this last path of service of M. Philaret that I allow you to draw your attention for a while. Can we first of all call this fellowship of M. Philaret service to the word? I confess that I do not insist on an affirmative solution to this issue and am ready to admit that it is not possible; but at this moment I want to express not my opinion, but the views of M. Philaret himself. It was expressed by him in a speech delivered at a meeting of Moscow. Branches of the Society 1824 August 12. At this meeting, a report on the activities of the department for 1823 was heard. Here, by the way, it was said: a) about the publication of the Psalter in the Georgian language, b) about the activities of the society’s employees in the districts of the Moscow diocese, in which they read, among other things, a notification from the Bogorodsky employee-correspondent that copies of the New Testament in Russian are also bought by Old Believers, who with great attention and joy read this Divine book in their natural language, c) about the requirements for the Bible and the New Testament in Polish 3. “Having mentioned various kinds of reports (work, economic and moral), M. Filaret stops at the latter and asks: what moral profit has the Bible Society brought to Christian human society? The demand for such a report can be answered firstly: that since the significant fruit that the Bible Society can and does bring through the dissemination of the books of the Holy Scriptures, and through them the true Christian teaching, is born in the hearts, then only the Knower of the Heart can correctly calculate and evaluate the spiritual fruit that is born in the hearts. However, the very desire to read sacred books, awakened in many on the occasion of such public dissemination, is already a guarantee of their moral improvement, just as in bodily illnesses an aroused desire for food and correct taste are considered among the signs of recovery. Secondly, in response to the demand for a moral account in the ongoing spread of the reading of sacred books, it can be said that this account will be received in due time by descendants. Whoever sowed grass seed in the spring, you can ask him next fall how much he collected; but whoever sowed the seed of a fruitful tree, even after several years it is sometimes too early to ask whether he was paid in abundance with fruits for the dependence and labor of sowing and returning. He who sows the seed of the word of God sows for eternity: it will not be too late if the strong rise of what is sown turns out to be more in the second than in the first kind, from the seed that falls on the soft ground of young hearts with improved upbringing. Thirdly, if anyone wanted to urgently demand that he be shown what a noticeable effect has been produced by the efforts of the local Bible Society in those people who are closer, and by some preliminary education seem more capable of receiving the desired impressions from it: let us be allowed to counter this insistence with some courage, and ask the questioners to consider who owes whom more in this case an account: Is the Society to the people for whom and between whom it operates, or on the contrary, they – to Society? If in a country suffering from a scarcity of bread, a Subsistence Society was formed, collected benefits, opened local sales of bread at a reasonable price, and distributed it to the poor without money: what more could be demanded from this charitable Society for this country? Is it still obliged to answer if someone wants to eat roots or something similar rather than buy pure bread, or if a disease that has been added to hunger has completely extinguished the desire for food? So, when the Bible Society, for its part, everywhere offers sacred books to feed those who suffer with the hunger of hearing the word of God: should it still answer whether they are using this healthy and saving food enough or not enough? Isn’t it more right, on the contrary, after 10 of its reports, to at least once suggest to those for whom it works that they too should think about whether they owe a report, if not to the Society, at least to themselves, on how they took advantage of the Society’s benevolent efforts?” And further, as an example of the requirement for such a report, the speaker cites the words of St. John Chrysostom from 2 and 5 conversations on the Gospel of Matthew about the need to read the Holy Scripture and teach in it for lay people, and not for monks alone, and adds that failure to fulfill this requirement in the days of Chrysostom could still have an excuse for itself in the fact that then there was no printing and therefore there was not such a convenient way to multiply and distribute copies of the books of Holy Scripture as at the present time. “Finally (it is necessary) to mention the last report, from which no one will be able to evade when it is demanded. The word of God itself will demand it, according to the immutable saying of Jesus Christ: do not accept My words, having one who judges him: the word that is spoken will judge him at the last day (John. XII, 48). What account will we give Him if He once tells us: in justice, you were worthy to wander from sea to sea and from north to east, and to run around seeking the word of the Lord, and not to find (Amos. VIII, 12), but out of mercy towards you I wandered through your cities and villages, looking for you; Why did you either not accept Me, or did not accept Me quite sincerely? Why did they not learn from Me to think, feel, act, live, die and rise in the resurrection of life? Divine Word! (the speaker addresses the Word itself) living and active and judging the thoughts and thoughts of the heart! Our heart accepts You; and our hands, if possible, pass You on to our brothers. Instruct us all, live and act in all of us, judge and correct our thoughts and heart dispositions, and, by the grace of the Father of the Word, do not condemn us on the last day” 4. This is M. Philaret’s view of the task of the Bible Society and his personal work in its membership: this is the sowing of the word of God. But this is not how they looked at this matter in St. Petersburg - precisely in that highest government sphere, which today is called the “star chamber”. In May of this year, a major change took place, which had a fatal significance for the Bible Society, founded on the initiative of the Sovereign himself: the Ministry of Education and Spiritual Affairs was abolished; Prince Golitsyn, who stood at the head of this ministry and chairman of the Bible Society, was removed and had to give up his place in the Council of the Sovereign to Count Arakcheev. This prime minister, to put it in our own way, gathered around him the following associates - notorious enemies of the Bible Society and in particular M. Philaret: Admiral Shishkov, Yuryevsky Archimandrite Photius and trustee Kaz. textbook Magnitsky district. M. Seraphim was made the chairman of the Bible Society, and Admiral Shishkov was made the minister of public education. And now, not more than a month after the above-mentioned Moscow meeting of the Bible Society, precisely on September 13, Min. people. enlightenment Admiral Shishkov addressed Count Arakcheev with the following attitude: “I am conveying Moscow to Your Excellency. Vedomosti, in which you will see under the article Moscow on August 27 an extract from the journal Meetings of Moscow. Committee of the Bible Society, where its successes are extolled and, following this article, the church books sold by the Bible Society in Slavic, one Russian and Slavic-Russian are announced. Proclamations are made about this, contrary to any concept of the Old Believers, who do not tolerate the slightest change in the biblical texts, it is proclaimed that they happily buy up and read the New Testament in Russian, and this language, as if some kind of special one, is called their natural language. This, superior to real Christians, is praise for the Old Believers, i.e. schismatics, and the assurance that the Russian language is especially natural to them is an obvious and complete lie, obviously only preached in order to raise schisms and destroy our language, in which services are performed in churches and the Gospel is read. These articles are published in Moscow. Ved. 3 months after the change in the Ministry of Public Education, and when nothing was mentioned about Bible Societies in St. Petersburg. Is it possible for the Moscow Archbishop not to know about these dispositions and, without any special intention, to allow such publication of articles, the same spirit and the same desire to shake the general peace of those who discover? On the second attached sheet Moskov. Vedomosti Your Excellency will consider the public sale of books, the main part of which, as being contrary to all Christian faith and outrageous against governments, should be destroyed. Some of them were already banned, but have reappeared. Thus, insidious malice will always try to rise up and intensify again if it does not restrain itself from its attempts with a firm hand! I have been entrusted with the Ministry of Education: but what kind of enlightenment can there be where faith wavers? If Bible Societies continue to exist and, preaching the benefits and spread of Christianity in a Christian state, in fact only multiply heresies and schisms, if church books, in order to diminish their importance, will be translated from a high language that has become sacred to us, unknown by whom and how, into the common language that we speak among ourselves in the theater, if during the dissemination of such translations (unless it is only necessary so that over time not to understand church services, or to serve mass in the language in which comedies are written), moreover, from foreign languages, instead of our prayers and evangelical moral teachings, the so-called spiritual-philosophical, and in their true meaning, Carbonara and revolutionary books will be translated; if, I say, all this continues as before, then I am not fit to be the Minister of Education” 5. But this is still the beginning of illness. All that Shishkov managed to do was so far limited to the fact that M. Seraphim, to whom Arakcheev presented this letter, as the president of Bibl. Society, in a letter to Filaret advised not to publish anything about the activities of the Society in any Gazette, but to send it to Izvestia Bibl. General But on November 1, Shishkov turned things around. Forwarding Count Arakcheev the last book of Izvestia Bibl. Societies and the Short Catechism of M. Philaret, the minister wrote: “In my previous letters, I had the honor to explain to Your Excellency about the ongoing assassination attempts and efforts to continue meetings of Bible Societies and distribute not translations, but, so to speak, the translation of the sacred scriptures from a high and important language into the common vernacular: the two most powerful weapons of revolutionary plans. Now I consider myself in the necessary obligation to forward to you the latest evidence of this, namely: a monthly published book entitled: News about these societies, where their deeds are extolled to the skies, and another: The Short Catechism here, at the Synodal Printing House, recently, as we hear, 18 thousand copies were printed. I have reasons to ask Your Excellency to report this to the Sovereign Emperor and to take strict measures to stop the publication of the first of these books and the distribution of the second now, at least until the next consideration of it: for if this last one (i.e., the Catechism) is distributed everywhere, then the action produced by it will not be possible to avert. Without even discussing some of the rules introduced into it that do not entirely agree with the teachings of our church (?), the only thing is that it contains the most important prayers that make up our spiritual education and with which every father teaches his son, who is barely even beginning to babble, prayers in which each letter should seem inviolable and sacred to us, prayers such as “Our Father” and “I believe in one God,” as well as “Commandments.” “Lord’s”, translated into simple language, altered and deliberately, for the strongest impression of this important change, printed in church letters: this alone already shows with what intention this huge amount was embossed.” This denunciation against M. Philaret, as no longer only a heretic, but also a Freemason and Carbonari - as an active seditious person, was reported to the Emperor, who ordered Arakcheev and Shishkov to talk about this with M. Seraphim. On November 4 (1824) this conversation took place and ended with M. Seraphim completely agreeing with the demands of the temporary worker and minister. News of the Bible. the societies were dissolved; M. Philaret's catechisms have been suspended due to distribution. And on December 28, Metropolitan Seraphim was forced to beg the Emperor in writing on behalf of the “entire church” to close the biblical societies: “Deign,” the petition wrote, “so that this year, so important for Orthodoxy, will be crowned in its outcome with a new sign of Your fatherly thoughts about us and about the faith of our fathers” 6 . This “praying to the church,” however, was not successful. Imp. Alexander I did not agree to the closure of Bib. Generally, founded by him and died true to himself. “zealots for the good of the church and fatherland” managed to achieve the completion of this evil deed during the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich. On April 12, 1826, the High. order to close the bib. society. To what extent the hatred of the enemies of the biblical society was fierce and the rumor about the heresy of M. Philaret was widespread even in his diocese - this is proven by the following. data: a) Archimandrite Photius 1824 August 30 wrote to Archimandrite Gerasim: “Orthodoxy triumphs! Rejoice, Reverend Elder! The wickedness was stopped; the army of the blasphemous devil fell (this is the Masonic party), heresies and schisms made the language numb (i.e., the popular language of the Bible), all ungodly societies (the biblical one in the first place) like hell, were crushed. Our one minister is the Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father, amen. R. S. Pray for A. A. Arakcheev; he appeared as a servant of God for St. Church and faith like St. George the Victorious. God save him." 7 There is no need, of course, to explain that the letter is encrypted, to which the encryption key is attached in the form of a postscriptuma. b) 31 Dec. M. Filaret found himself forced to reassure his mother about his Orthodoxy and wrote: “Reverend. The Metropolitan (Seraphim) writes to me a lot about the catechism, assuring that no one doubts its Orthodoxy, but that it’s all about the Russian dialect” 8 . c) And the chairman himself Bibl. Society Seraphim in a letter to Parthenius (Chertkov) Bishop of Vladimir wrote: “The catechisms of the Most Reverend of Moscow have been stopped because in them, especially in the Brief, the Creed, the Decalogue and the Lord’s Prayer are set out in the Russian dialect. This adverb will not be heard in the Old Testament, but it seems that it will very soon fall silent in the New" 9 . And indeed, the last prediction came true. During the entire thirty-year reign of Imp. Nikolai Pavlovich - the Russian dialect was silent in the Old and New Testaments. True, two paths of his ministry were closed - the path of catechesis and the dissemination of the word of God through the Bible. Society. But the idea that his catechism was harmful was so absurd that it was banned for only 3 years, and then not only all of Russia, but also Western Europe saw it again. There are still two options left for M. Philaret: preaching from the pulpit and being present in the Synod as a member. And he used both of these paths with energy and skill - and as a reward for this he almost lost his episcopal see. Unfortunately, the unfortunate thought about the harm of translating the word of God into Russian was deeply ingrained in the consciousness of unreasonable adherents of the Slavic text, became widespread, and in the middle of the reign was taken to a monstrous extreme. Famous in its kind, vol. The prosecutor of the count and hussar colonel Protasov got into his head the idea of ​​canonizing the Slavic translation of the Bible - that is, establishing its inviolability, making it the Orthodox-Russian Vulgate, precisely for the purpose that the common people could not understand and read the Word of God themselves, but would read and understand in the way that and how to understand would be prescribed. I will not dwell on the presentation of this dark case of the Russian Orthodox colonel and the synod. prosecutor. I will point out only as a proven fact that the removal of M. Philaret from the Holy Synod followed his energetic stand for the dignity of the Russian language, for a careful study of the word of God. How deeply this strong-willed servant of the Word was shaken by such an insult can be seen from the following: a) in a letter to the arch. To Anthony, his confessor, M. Philaret wrote: “Pray that the Lord will enlighten me on what I should do, and tell me a good word of advice. The concern is not about what happened to me personally, but about whether I can be of any use to the service. Isn’t the time indicated to me to retire in order to mourn my sins and, outside the rebellion of affairs, to pray for the well-being of the Holy Church? Regarding these words, subsequently prof. M. Academy P. S. Kazansky wrote: “People who interfered in something that was not their own business, whom it was not a pity to sweep away with a broom from the place they occupied, a husband who may not be replaced by anyone capable of more than one century, were almost forced to resign from their position” 10 . b) “I was present,” testified Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, “at his (Filaret’s) departure on May 15, and saw how he cried, saying goodbye to the brethren in the church of the courtyard, which involuntarily struck me given his strong character” 11. By some evil irony of fate with our famous historian, S. M. Solovyov and, here - in the depiction of this deeply tragic moment in our national history in the 19th century. A very unpleasant incident happened. In his notes, he wrote: “Filaret had to stop traveling to St. Petersburg to attend the Holy Synod, where the spurs of Ob. The prosecutor, hussar officer Count Protasov, was caught on his cassock.” “The Trinity Lavra, directly subordinate to him (Filaret), was a place of revelry” 12. The sin of our historian is nothing less than that he placed the events of this time not at the geographical points where they actually took place, but just the opposite. The fact is that at that historical moment when a hussar officer in St. Petersburg celebrated his victory over a stubborn monk and his prosecutor’s spurs rang merrily in the chord of the march “the thunder of victory is heard, long live autocracy, Orthodoxy and the people” - at that time in the Trinity Lavra and near it - on Korbukh, on the site of the amusing royal palace, the Gethsemane monastery-skete: and here the brethren from the peasant tax class performed Arch. Dionysius, hitherto unusual nightly and daily prayers. In the circle of this brethren, Filaret wept with invisible tears and fervently prayed: wept and prayed for the salvation of the deceived Orthodox Tsar, wept and prayed for the humiliated Orthodox Church, wept and prayed for the cruelly desecrated Russian people, desecrated in its most sacred treasure - language: for there in St. Petersburg they decided that German, French, English and other languages are worthy of the Word of God, and the Russian people, vile language is only suitable for comedies and taverns! No, you cannot write Russian history even for the 19th century. without connection with church history!.. From that moment on, a terrible enslavement of the word of God and Orthodox theological science began. The Savior’s commandment: “test the scriptures” could be fulfilled even in the Spirit. Academies only quietly, but God forbid in print, express any living and independent attempt of this kind. But this heavy press was pressed especially on the Moscow Spirit. The Academy, because just now it was in the full sense of Filaret’s. I draw attention to this fact, already documented, in order to amend the following words of S. M. Solovyov’s note: “The Theological Academy and Seminary was in a terrible state under the yoke of Philaret.” To be historically correct, it is necessary to correct these words as follows: under the yoke of Colonel Protasov, Filaret and his Academy and both Seminaries were in a terrible state. Or it’s even better to put it this way – in the words of S. M. Solovyov – all Orthodoxy, the whole Russian land, suffered, and its first sufferer was M. Filaret. But Nikolaev's times have passed. During the reign of Alexander II, the emancipation of the word of God and the science of it took place - this was accomplished solely thanks to M. Philaret. Tempted by suffering, he immediately after the coronation made a proposal to the Synod to translate the word of God into Russian. Although even this time our famous servant of the Word had to work very hard, his work was crowned with complete success. The Russian Church saw the word of God in its Russian language, and theological science, in particular the Philaret Academy, gave brilliant experiments in the broad, deeply scientific interpretation of the word of God, or, in the language of M. Philaret, the seed he sown in the spring of his life grew in the fall and bore rich fruit. I allow myself to think that it is completely unnecessary to prove my words with facts here at the Filaret Academy. Let me ask just one more question: What power did M. Philaret possess in order to emerge as such a glorious victor from the terrible situation in which his service to the word, his apostolic service was carried out? There is an opinion that M. Filaret was a subtle politician who knew how to flatter sovereigns and the powerful of the world. This is apparently shared by S. M. Solovyov, claiming that Filaret “was born to be a minister, that he loved to bring his conversations to the court, to the emperor, to his relations with the royal family” 13. But, in my opinion, such an explanation does not explain anything, but is just another one of the thorns of his crown. True, there is no doubt that all three sovereigns respected M. Philaret and decorated his skinny chest with as many insignia as no other Russian hierarch wore, it seems. But the question is how could M. Philaret achieve this respect, how to find access to the heart of the emperors, when they always tried to remove him from them? The matter is explained, in my opinion, more simply. The only weapon with which M. Philaret defended himself from his countless enemies and with which he paved the way to glory was his preaching from the episcopal pulpit. Here is his sword, which brought him victory. Let me spend a few minutes proving my opinion. Judgment has already been pronounced on the sermons of M. Philaret both by the special science of preaching and by experts in artistic and oratorical style. Speransky said that he knew only two styles: Filaret and Karamzin. S. N. Glinka argued that Filaret revived the eloquence of Bossuet. But I would like to draw attention to the ideological side of M. Philaret’s sermons. 1) Of all the theological sciences, Philaret primarily studied the Holy Scriptures and the Old Testament. and Nov. Testament. He loved it, read it in different languages, and was so imbued with this biblical worldview and form of expression that he easily found in the Bible criteria for judging contemporary events and contemporary phenomena, and even expressions and entire images. The terrible censorship pressure served as a constant motivation for him to refine himself in this art: to clothe the phenomenon of our time in these biblical images. This symbolism of the language of Philaret’s sermons is, in essence, the same thing that our publicists call Aesopian language. And Philaret’s sermon, outwardly expounding general dogmatic and moral truths, in itself already edifying, always contained an answer to any question of our time, understandable to those who were directly interested in it. This is the reason that Philaret’s sermons were quickly sold out in manuscript immediately after they were delivered, were quickly sold out upon publication, and were read with the keenest interest. But how could M. Philaret know modern life, living hopelessly only at home and in church? In response to this, we must again point to Philaret’s unparalleled modus vivendi: his house was open to everyone all day; he had no office hours. And so everyone went and went to Filaret. He talked to everyone; more precisely, he listened to everyone attentively and gave his answers to questions and requests. Some of his contemporaries were amazed at his extraordinary memory. He knew and remembered everything, they said. Filaret, further, carried on extensive correspondence with people from various classes of society: here is another way to know modern life without leaving his office. These properties of the creative spirit of M. Filaret were the reason that from the church pulpit he acted as a publicist, and an exposer, and as a leader of the entire Russian society of the moment on the most pressing issues. Here are several examples of this biblical-symbolic language of Philaret’s sermons: “Let us enter one of the ordinary meetings in the house or in the courtyard; Let's look for Christians among the sons of this age, let's listen to the conversations. We will immediately hear caresses, slander, the voice of vanity, self-interest, the laughter of frivolity, the cries of impatience, judgments about everything that they know and do not understand” 14. I will draw attention here to one somewhat strange word: forecourt. What is it? By its consonance, it evokes in listeners the same idea of ​​janitors and courtiers. So judge where the speaker is going to look for Christianity. Judging by the fact that at these moments the fate of the biblical society was being decided in the Arakcheevsky circle in St. Petersburg - the forecourt, of course, designated this “star chamber”. But it's still soft. Filaret's spiritual sword sometimes cut the truth even more sharply. In his sermon on November 8 (1823) in the Archangel Cathedral, M. Philaret took the topic of the argument of Arch. Michael with the devil about Moses' body. (Jude v. 9). And this is how he thoroughly depicts the character of the fighters. “If we imagine one of the first friends of the kings and one of the last slaves, convicted of a crime and condemned, the difference between them is still small in comparison with the difference between Michael the Archangel and the devil. How much will a nobleman allow a convicted criminal to stand before him? But Archangel Michael allows the devil to argue with him. Archangel Michael! He did not dare answer the madman because of his madness. People would look at this angelic feud, accepting high titles for themselves, which, however, are not higher than earthly ones, and would remember at the same time how they sometimes treat people whom they consider lower than themselves. How often, not even because of guilt or strife, they humiliate people like themselves with reproachful and blasphemous names.... We, for whom also, and without a doubt many times, our Guardian Angels bicker and fight with the devil in order to preserve us, not according to our dignity, but according to their heavenly love for mankind, do we imitate in our earthly disputes the patience and meekness of our heavenly defenders? Do we endure even when we are absolutely sure of the injustice of those who argue with us? Do we maintain meekness even against obvious impudence? Is it not often, on the contrary, that we argue with stubbornness and bitterness over something of which we ourselves are not sure of the justice? Why did M. Philaret decide to deal with this dispute about the body of Moses in such detail? And what does this mean here by the name of the body of Moses - (of course, the Slavic Bible). Who is the Archangel and the Devil here? Who is the first friend of the kings and the last slave, convicted of a crime and convicted? Why is this about the struggle of the Guardian Angels? In response to these questions, Filaret could say to the most captious censor: if you have ears to hear, let him hear. But knowing that this was said in Moscow on November 8, 1823, it is not difficult to point out the persons here called almost by proper names. What could be done with such a preacher to stop his sword, so freely walking through houses and suburbs? There is only one thing - to force him to remain silent. But the Filarets’ sword weakened this remedy too. The fact is that none of the preachers spoke as many sermons in the tsarist days as Filaret. And it was these sermons that paved the way for him to the Tsar, Queen, Grand Dukes and Duchesses. They all read Philaret’s sermons with interest. Why was he a flatterer in them? Far from it. His love for the divine word saved him from this temptation and danger. He talked with the Kings in the language of the biblical prophets, praised, consoled, encouraged, instructed, revealed the ideal of the King, and the highest tasks of the Christian King, sometimes as freely and directly as the hierarch of a constitutional state would not dare to do. But this entire conversation was conducted in purely Russian - the Russian language, silent in the Old and New Testaments, resounded loudly in the political sermons of M. Philaret, like a Russian prophetic word. And so I think that anyone who would like to write a historical commentary on the sermons of M. Philaret would do well if he took for himself as an epigraph and a guide those words of I. S. Aksakov, with which we began our long and sad speech: "M. Filaret passed away... half a century of edification to all Russian people was interrupted in a marvelous example of a tirelessly vigilant spirit that remained awake to the end. The artistic, important word that had been heard in Russia for half a century and more than half a century fell silent, now penetrating deeply into the secrets of the knowledge of God, now dressing the mind of divine truths with harmonious and powerful beauty.” 40 years have passed... The bulk of glory has collapsed!.. Speaking strictly scientifically, it must be said that only that which should collapse according to the will of the Creator collapsed in her. But the inviolable and whole moral image of Filaret remained, forever imprinted in his prophetic word and service. The remains of his dejected body remained, hidden in a tomb, which became a Christian-national property and protected by the reverence and respect of all who listen to the word of God each in their own dialect. Come, everyone who honors the word of God, regardless of religion and nationality, and bow your head with grateful respect before this tomb; you are obliged to do this: for here lie the remains of a servant of the Word, who sowed the word of God into eternity and laid down his soul for its liberation from the shackles of fanaticism and ignorance. Speech delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Moscow Theological Academy on November 19, 1907 (in memory of the 40th anniversary of the death of Philaret). Newspaper Moscow 1867 No. 184 Collection, ed. General Love. Spirit. enlightenment on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of M. Philaret. M. 1883 T.I, pp. 170–171 Prof. I. Korsunsky: Saint Philaret of Moscow. Kharkov 1894, pp. 50 – 52. Anniversary, Gathering. T.I, pp. 271–283. Holy Filar. I. N. Korsun. page 53 News. Europe. March 1907. News from Europe, 1907, March. Prof. I. N. Korsunsky. Holy Filaret, page 48. You might be interested in: